Base text for the Centenary years
= BICENTENARY PROJECT = This base text is in process of being copied from the text on the [App. Peru 2021 "Click docs. Click Base text Centenary . . ." If you do have access to a smartphone you can view the "App" on a webpage.] Britain & Ireland, the USA and the Centenary years in Peru. (Base text for the Leguía years) This project is designed to provide an insight into: the complex triangular relationship at that time between Peru-US-Ireland&UK; the underlying changes from “Civilismo” to the “Oncenio of President Leguía” and the “drift” from British commercial hegemony to that of the US. The opening shots for the bicentenary could be said to have been fired on the 150th anniversary of the birth of Leguía, 19 February, 2013. Some notes about that and the general background to 1921 follow. _____________________________________________________ Three talks about the life and times of ex-President Leguía on and around his exact birth day, 19 February, were held at the Cultural Centre Inca Garcilaso of the Ministry of Foreign Relations between 13-27 February 2013. All three talks can be viewed on YouTube. entry Cultural Centre Inca Garcilaso in the bibliography. An exhibition on the theme of Leguía was held at the Casa Mariateguí and a double mesa ''conference with five specialist speakers has been held at the Instituto Riva Aguero in Jiron Camaná. The talks mark 150 years since the birth of Augusto Bernardino Leguía y Salcedo in 1863 who came to be Minister of Finance, Prime Minister and then President for the greater part of the years 1903 to 1930, enjoying much of Peru's second great bonanza period, which at its extreme stretched from 1892 to 1932. And at the end of the 150th anniversary year a conference was held at the Universidad del Pacífico . . . . THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND to the Leguía years This article offers an assessment of Leguía in the context of history as Peru starts wish-listing the major works for its bicentenary celebrations only 8 years away . The centenary celebrations in 1921 and those for the Victory of Ayacucho in 1924 were seen as amongst the high points in Leguia's Presidency. The talks by Antonio Zapata (the broad brush) and Juan Luis Orrego (specifics of Lima 1921/24), plus material cited in the section “Bibliography”, form the focus for this walk through history. '''A boom-time President ' It is well to remember that throughout the overall period considered here (1903 to1930 – termed the “long” Leguía years) the Peruvian elites (at least, during the Oncenio there was a shift in power from the oligarchy to the upper middle class) enjoyed the bounty of an ongoing “complex” boom, that is one which was interrupted by a year or so readjusting to the “shock” of the WWI and, around the same time, to a switch from traditional sugar, cotton, wool and rubber to copper and oil. As Toledo, García II, and Humala (so far) might testify, being a boom and bonanza President is a tad easier than otherwise. For more about Peru's bonanza periods see Peruvian Times Jan 31, 2013 . So Leguía had the good fortune to preside when, at least initially, there was money around “to do things”. Further he was lucky not to be President 1912-1919, Peru's point – or rather period - of relative downturn. Relative downturn and readjustment ''' On the trade front, things had been going well for Peru. They continued to do so but they slowed down in some sectors, almost into reverse gear, before continuing their upward advance (in other sectors) and mostly this slow-down occurred after Leguía's first Government and before his second. The cause of this relative downturn or “inflexion” was multiple: Income from rubber declined as Britain “moved production” to Malaya; the opening of the Panama Canal favoured disproportionately New York over Liverpool; WWI at first deprived Peru of markets in Europe, then came a burst of wartime demand from the US followed by overproduction and a slump in prices for agro-exports; the US comes to replace the UK as the main trading partner and then main investor. Most of these factors produce hiccups and switches between sectors rather than overall socio-economic disaster. Other factors are considered below. . '''Internal political pressures To understand the political situation at the beginning of this period (1903) focus for a moment on the main groups with economic and social punch and also on the disenfranchised. Leguia had to balance the interests and power of (a) the old elite “Civilistas” who were typically sugar-planters, cotton growers, hacendados, gamonales and so on. Old money, but often not that old! The Civilistas had started well with their objective of installing Peru's first civilian president (Manuel Justo Pardo y Lavalle, president 1872-1876) but by the time of Leguías first government they had become a reactionary force. (b) the newly emerging urban industrialists and labor sindicalists, weakened by the downturn & “economic abortion” in that sector following 1908 – a quick comparison with Japan's rapid industrialisation might serve well here (easier to be rentiers than producers) - and © the miners and oil people, who often were foreigners. At the time seventy percent of Peruvians were Quechua speakers, 10 percent spoke other languages other than Spanish including Aymara, Shipibo, & other Peruvian languages and “immigant languages”: Italian, German, Japanese, Cantonese, etc. But few of these had the vote, effectively disenfranchised (see Paniagua), nevertheless the Presidency had to find a way of keeping a lid on their demands. In Puno this meant repressing the frequent peasant uprisings. Leguia in his first term came to power on the backs of the Civilistas (see (a) above), in his second term he played populist street politics with the new urban classes (see (b) above) but after about 1923 was accused of selling out to foreign mining and oil interests (see © above). True or false? To what extent was he visionary in his policies regarding the disenfranchised seventy percent? Was he a closet protestant within a catholic country? Did he not deal favourably towards “indigenismo” and the indigenistas? ''On the other hand did he not sell out to US capital at the expense of the national industrial middle class and the old elite? This photo, taken by Walter Runcie in 1929 at Cerro de Pasco (mine) as Leguia's ''Oncenio ''was drawing to a close, prompts various interpretations. The workers in the photo could be local Andeans recruited into the mine. As Klarén (2000 see Bibliography) explains the Cerro de Pasco Corporation “proletarianized” the previous peasant population of the Mantaro and adjacent valleys. Under Leguía this US based Corporation came to monopolize mineral production, and the route ahead for “these grandfathers of today's new middle class” was not going to be easy, If Peruvians could have owned the wealth beneath their feet these guys in the photo above would be Peru's equivalent of gulf-state millionaires. As it was Leguía's ambitious plans for his new fatherland (la Patria Nueva as he called it) were focused on a magnificent expansion of Lima. Was the splendor of Avenida Leguía (now Avenida Arequipa see photo below) a necessary, almost inevitable, step in the progress from an Aristocratic Republic or a cruel expropriation of wealth. (see note re Avenida Arequipa.) '''A traditional conflict between city and the mining and agro-export areas' The problem for the miners (and for Peru's economists) was and is that they produced the hard currency (pounds sterling until1930, thereafter dollars – see Box 1) whereas the city-dwellers – especially the elites – were the big spenders. Thus creating a “spatial disequilibrium” between mining regions (earners) and the urban areas (spenders). A characteristic which of course exists to this day, though in a less vicious form. In colonial times the mines paid for Spain's military adventures in Europe, the import of luxury goods from France and more besides. Minerals and oil versus agro-exports Cerro de Pasco Corporation along with another U.S. firm, accounted for more than 97 percent of Peru's mineral exports. Cerro came to have a stranglehold on the central Andes mining sector. This corporation and the oilfields in the north (Talara - Lobitos) – during Leguia's administration - contributed an increasing share of Peru's hard dollar spending power as the previously dominant wool, cotton, sugar and rubber sectors declined (though still dollar earners). Lima, Arequipa and some other towns contributed financial, self-consumption and entrepot services but the cities themselves – given the failure of industrialization and labor policies after 1908 – contributed little. It seems at some point in the early twenties Leguía turned away from the populist policies on which he was elected to more elitest / pro US and (thus) more repressive ones. Several historians locate the turning point in 1923, when a “project by Leguía to consecrate the nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus backfired. The reaction by students and radicals produced street protests. These were put down with a mano dura.” External forces, the Mexican and Russian Revolutions conspired with the illegitimacy of Leguía's later government to produce two of Peru's most enduring but troubled political movements: APRA (vascillating from left to right) and the Communist Party (frequently splitting). for photos The areas which got to spend the pounds & dollars were those in the following two photos: (1) the then fashionable Plaza de Armas de Lima (1931) and the surrounding shopping streets, notably the Jirón de la Unión and (2 now located on page 8) an aerial view of Leguía's Patria Nueva ''Lima, c.1929 - the area fanning out from the new Moorish Arch (a gift from Spain in gratitude for 1821 / a project to provide an Arc de Triomphe for Lima / a reminder of the Moorish roots of Spain – which?) along the 28 de Julio. In the photo the parallel Avenidas Petit Thouars, Leguía (now Arequipa) and Arenales with Salaverry barely surveyed (nesr Leguía's racecourse extreme right). captions ' ' '''Copper and Oil take over' Social and political power before the mid-twenties rested on landed wealth which in general was derived from cotton, sugar, wool, and (later in the East) rubber production. For varying reasons their values as a percentage of total exports declined and with it the decline and fall of the Aristocratic Republic. The old guard hoped that the perceived wizardry of Leguía could halt the fall – instead he seems to have fallen for the indiscreet charm of US capital particularly in the extractive sectors of oil and copper. For this he was roundly condemned as entreguista. Arrested development – industrial development crowded out? AMD1 Even as the first green shoots of industrialization were appearing, agents of the “resource curse” and perhaps also America-philia were smothering them at birth. From railway workshops in Arequipa to soap factories in Lima it seems that Leguía’s experience of the US economy could not alert him to the market distortions of entreguismo. He had learnt the lessons of the US civil war (where for the “old South” read the plantation-base of the Civilistas and for the Yankee-North read modernized Peru). However there was a contradiction. The Yankee-North proved to be an emerging industrial power which came to rival Britain within 30 years of the War, whereas Leguía’s extractive sector Peru was hardly going to provide the counter-balancing industrial powerhouse. And if industrialization was going to be seen as a “whitening of the Andeans” then it would be doomed to disaster. . . . . .It would take decades before politicians followed industrialists in daring to talk of “inclusiveness” in the workforce. '' '' ''of image above Cover of the second issue of'' Industria Peruana, November 1931, “revamped” periodical of the Society Nacional de Industrias. Source: Drinot (see bibliography). Orig. BNP. “Now post-Leguia – just - industrialization, more than an economic project, emerges as a cultural aspiration.” '' ''Indigenismo On aspect of the US model which simply did not fit was (a) the different social and ethnic composition as between the US and Peru. In the US the model was not explicit regarding the inclusion of Native Americans, Mexicans, Afro-Americans and (b) the heavy constraints on entrepreneurial activity and scientific invention imposed by society and religion in Catholic Peru. Peru's flourishing community of Leguía émigré-critics characterized the ideology which justified the extreme inequalities and their link to ethnicity as “positivist / social darwinism” during the nineteenth century period of “British capitalism” (see the “imperialism of free trade”) and pointed out that the shift to US capital seemed to coincide with a scarcely improved characterization as “marginality / marginalization”. One response to this by Peruvian intellectuals was the development of'' indigenismo. The intellectuals were Criollo or mestizo, seldom indigenous, and based their demand for better treatment of the Andean or other native inhabitant not on an essential human right would not have been acceptable to the hegemonic mind-set at that time but on an appeal to past glories, for example by referring to the splendor and high moral values of the Inca Empire – even if these needed to be over-hyped. The art of Sabogal, whom Leguía used to help design the Parque de la Reserva, the literature of Valcarcel (a newly oriented history of ancient Peru), the pages of Amauta and the Puno-based literature of the Orkopata group all helped lay the foundations for a more genuine “Arguedian” literature. The first book “Agua” of José María Arguedas was published only 5 years after Leguía was toppled from power by the army officer Sanchez Cerro. ''' '' '' '' ''Entreguismo'' Selling out or selling off one's national patrimony, often in the form of concessions at what his Civilista critics considered give-away prices is an almost inevitable sin in resource-rich Peru. The Guano era set the pace. The Grace Contract followed in which the Peruvian Corporation (trains, land, ports etc) became virtually a (foreign) state within a (Peruvian/civilista) state and then under Leguía, as we have seen on page 1, the Cerro de Pasco Corporation greatly increased copper production by the construction (1922) of a huge new smelter and refinery at La Oroya in the central Andes. Metal production shot up fifty percent. Smaller independent plants closed down and Cerro de Pasco established a quasi-monopoly. The story goes that after polluting land up to 30 kilometers away the Corporation was able to buy up the pasture etc at minimal cost, becoming in the process the largest landowner in Peru displacing the Civilista sugar barons in the'' terrateniente'' league. As owner of virtually everything in the region the Corporation printed its own money which it seems employees were compelled to spend in company stores. ' ' '''Standard Oil In the north Standard Oil of New Jersey took over an ailing British Peruvian petroleum company which was in long-standing trouble with the tax authorities. Standard Oil locally used the name, the International Petroleum Company and, in nationalist circles, that became a byword for monopoly market exploitation. Forty years later Cerro, the Peruvian and the International were prime targets for nationalization when Velasco's left-of-centre military government took over in1968. Leguia's vision of development following the US model seems to have been ill-founded. As a general comment and perhaps a further view The Peru Reader has it this way: “Leguía's Oncenio or eleven-year rule, blocked radical change. The former treasury minister promised to detain "the advance of Communism . . . and its dreadful consequences" and opened the country to further investment by U.S. companies. Opposition leaders were deported including the young Haya (de la Torre). To back efforts to expand public works, urbanization and the middle classes, Leguia mixed armed repression, electoral gerry mandering, and savvy stagecraft, like his appeal to popular religiosity through the showy dedication of the republic of Peru to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. His rallying cry was a "New Fatherland." Yet the country continued to rest on the unstable foundation of the export of raw materials to the wealthy northern countries. The lucrative profits filled the coffers of foreign companies and their allies in the national elite under the neocolonial brand of capitalism.” (p229) NOTES ' ' Note 1. The Centre bears the name of Peru's first “mestizo intellectual” Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and is located opposite the basilica of San Pedro on Jirón Ucayali. 10 minutes down Lampa from the Colmena station of the Metropolitano. Note 2. In a catalogue of photos by Walter O. Runcie, quite a few were taken during or soon after the Oncenio of Leguía. That is very early for the case of aerial shots. Three (see above) stood out as capable of expressing a thread which is drawn out though these articles: the human struggle for freedom and security, for equality and “feeling good”. These as we know often appear in tension with each other. Leguía was a self-confessed modernizer and modernization, in its various guises, can be seen as both the good companion and at times the enemy of humans in this epic journey, whether at the time of Garagay and Chavin 3000 years ago or in the 1920's of Augusto Bernadino Leguia. Note 3. Avenida Arequipa. Have you ever wondered why Lima does not have one great high or main street – like the wonderful La Reforma in Mexico City or Oxford Street in London – which simply grew in length as the city grew outwards. Avenida Arequipa, rather than uniting Miraflores with the Cercado (old city centre) seems to divide them. Leguía's showy avenue of quasi-aristocratic mansions has been reverting to a nasty five-mile row of ill-planned, ill-designed commercial buildings for the last 50 years. This avenue should have been the showcase Fifth Avenue and backbone of the Grand City, an organic ''extension of Jiron de la Unión and Wilson. Leguías design was, according to this thinking, a perversion of development. Note 4. A satirist might have quipped that Leguía's most notable achievement was in 'producing' these two movements. The better connected (student) protesters, for example Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, were sent into exile and some given a “beca” by the state (read Leguía). It was also the year in which neo-Marxist Mariateguí returned to Peru. A conversation I had with Haya in 1978 (in connection with the processing of an honorary doctorate at the London Shool of Economics) shortly before he died was uniquely about the year 1926 when he was 'in exile' at the LSE and confirms the view that by then Leguía had ended his dalliance with populism and began to build up his alliance of foreign capital. He seems to have channelled much of the finance he raised into the Foundation Company which in turn carried out his ambitious urbanization and other projects. Note 5. The story of Peruvian migration ' ' The story of Peruvians in Britain - expats, émigrés, migrants, students, diplomats, amongst others - has had many intriguing and colourful episodes, no more so than in the case of Peruvian President Leguía. He was considered to be one of the most anglophile and pro-''anglosajon of Peruvian leaders. This at the time was not necessarily considered to be a fatal quality in a president, though eventually pro-US entreguismo (explained later) became his Achilles heel! For anglophone historians the trajectory of the Leguía Governments (there were four* over two periods) is of some considerable interest. He had been married to Julia Swayne who was of Scottish ancestry: her father had been one of the more progressive sugar barons, introducing the steam plough into Peru during the 19th century. He was admired in Scotland and, it seems, thought of as a "good hacendado". Son-in-law President Leguía had been educated in a "British"school in Valparaiso, Chile and went to Britain, during the Great War (WW1) and resided at number 80*, Holland Park. The house there became a centre for Peruvian émigré activity. = BIBLIOGRAPHY = ' ' Basadre, Jorge. Historia de la Republica del Peru 1822-1933, 17 vols. Lima: Editorial Universitaria, 1970. Still indispensible, Basadre started writing this history not so long after Leguía's death. He had written quite widely about the President.The key volume regarding Leguía's life is No 12 of the sixth edition 1970. Page 51. Nos 11 and 13 also have something to say about the period. Basadre still provides a basic grid for anyone writing about Peru's history. Centro Cultural Inca Garcilaso. ''YouTube recordings of the Leguía talks''. In the “YouTube folder” CCIncaG - YouTube’. Accessed 28 March 2013. http://www.youtube.com/CCIncaG. These are live recordings, blips 'n' all and they are a real godsend. Before you read this article in its entirety watch the YouTubes These are in Spanish of the first talk by La Católica historian Antonio Zapata and then subsequently watch the other two talks by Luis Torrejon and Juan Luis Orrego . Hamann Mazuré, Johanna. Monumentos Públicos en Espacios Urbanos de Lima 1919-1930. ''Ph.D. Universidad de Barcelona. Enero 2011. Part II available online on the tdx network (www.tesisenxarxa.net) Accessed 29 March 2013. http://www.tdx.cat/bitstream/handle/10803/1552/03.JHM_PARTE_II.pdf?sequence=4. A wonderful tribute really to the only President who bothered overmuch with public art – even if it was an elitist, showy project of great expense (though the anniversary 1921 monuments were donated). '''Higgins, James'. Lima: A Cultural History. Oxford University Press, USA, 2005. Higgins is better known as a specialist in Peruvian literature at the University of Liverpool. Here he associates literary quotes or their authors with historical locations, which makes for an enchanting take on Lima, some of which is inevitably linked to Leguía. Instituto de Ciencias y Humanidades '''(ICH). Historia Del Perú : Proceso Económico Social y Cultural.' Lima: Asociación Fondo de Investigadores y Editores 2008. No one author appears on the catalogue card. http://www.bnp.gob.pe/abnopac/abnetcl.exe/O7004/ID6a7f7c2a/NT3. This is the Biblioteca Nacional del Perú reference, without which it may be quite difficult to locate. The editors have put together a useful critique of the straight-down-the-wicket approach, using a classist analysis. '''Klarén, Peter' F. Peru : society and nationhood in the Andes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. This is a text used widely in US universities and has stood the test of time – now over a decade. There is a good translation in Spanish. Pages around 263 provide an excellent explanation of the decline of the old planter economies and the rise of US capitalized copper, other metals and oil. Klarén is a wizard at sugar and the book together with the Peru Reader could if you were stranded on a desert island (Peru has several) serve up a quite cohesive course on Peruvian Studies, though a bit sparse on the pre-Inca. Leguía Olivera, Enriqueta ''Un simple acto de justicia http://www.augustobleguia.org/l/unsimpleactodejusticia.pdf Available online. Puts the case in favour of Leguía who was imprisoned without sentence but after a form of show trial following a ''golpe de estado against his Government in 1930. He died without justice in 1932. The 244 page book includes sections by Luis Ernesto Denegri: Leguía y la Historia and by Vicente del Solar: Cómo salir del subdesarrollo. Where is the golden train which the Peruvian Corporation gave to Perú or the President on the centenary in 1921? Sometimes a very small detail from history tells all. “nos dijo después, que ese trencito había sido un regalo de la Cia. Inglesa constructora del Ferrocarril Central Lima - La Oroya, en el día de la celebración del Centenario de la Independencia en 1921 y que era de oro puro. ¿Quién se lo apropiaría a su muerte?” Miller, Rory. Empresas británicas, economía y política en el Perú, 1850-1934. Lima: Banco Central de Reserva del Perú : IEP Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2011. An academic lifetime of articles by one of Britain's recognised specialists on Peru have been translated into Spanish and collected together in a book published by the Central Bank. There is still a great deal to be learnt from studying this period and now for the first time these articles are accessible to Spanish-speakers. Paniagua, Valentín. El Derecho De Sufragio. Accessed 29 March 2013. A severe critique of (most of) Peru's elections: http://www.web.onpe.gob.pe/modEscaparate/caratulas/paniagua.pdf. One of the most admired Peruvians, a modest Cuzqueno who nevertheless saved the country's democracy following the Montesinos reign of fear. Here he analyses the Right to Vote historically. Robinson, Arthur R. B. The magnificent field of enterprise Britons in Perú 1815-1915. Lima: Pacific, 1997. Really still the only book in its field. If it seems a touch parochial to the academic, it is probably because it is. Written by the “parish priest” of the British Community in Peru, it combines Anglican history with detailed studies of most of the major events, achievements and a (few) denouements of the work of the British when they came to be the most influential overseas commercial force of the time. It is free of grand theories such as the imperialism of free trade or dependency. Runcie, Walter O. Intensidad y Altura, Exhibition catalogue of photos at the CC PUCP. 7 June to 26 August 2012. The Martin Chambi of the air. One of a band of talented Americans who were invited – or simply came down – to Perú. Fawcett, Giesecke and so on. The article accompanying this bibliography uses three of the photos. Tauro, Alberto. Enciclopedia ilustrada del Perú: síntesis del conocimiento integral del Perú, desde sus orígenes hasta la actualidad. Lima, Perú: PEISA, 1987. Only twenty-five years old this Encyclopedia used to be used as we use online sources today. Its page on Leguía provides the basics but manages to airbrush out the role of his wife Julia in introducing her husband to the top society of the time. No Julia and no acceptance by the Civilista elite. But then that was pretty standard treatment at the time. Thorp, Rosemary, and Geoffrey Bertram. Peru 1880-1977 : Growth and policy in an open economy. New York: Columbia Univ. Pr., 1978. By far the best known of the economic history books on Peru, Rosemary Thorp is the doyenne of economic historians / macro economists working on Peru. And incidentally the Faculty in Oxford “produced” not only a Minister of Finance and Economics but also Director of the Central Bank – simultaneously. Thorp, Rosemary, and Maritza Paredes. Ethnicity and the Persistence of Inequality: The Case of Peru. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. It is something of a tribute to Rosemary Thorp that 30 years after publishing'' Peru 1880 to 1977'' she should return to the theme with a complementary volume on a social perspective on Peru's development - that is on ethnicity and inequality. Yepes, Ernesto. Peru 1820-1920: un siglo de desarrollo capitalista. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos : Campodonico Ed.,1972. This book was way ahead of most of the literature at the time it was published. Together with the ICH text, these books will give a reality check from a dependency left-of-centre viewpoint. As essential to the complete debate as ''Un simple acto de justicia ''is from the pro-Leguía corner. AMD1 peruvian.wikia.com Category:Peruvian Studies